Makudomi Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Hello! I had a thought on my mind and I'm honestly somewhat curious about how the western VN community feels about it in theory. Speaking purely from your personal tastes, what are your thoughts on the prospect of a romantic visual novel released with animated pixel sprites, similar to the look of the Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney series? Would you enjoy it for its nonstandard merits, or are you wholly satisfied with the static but more detailed style that most VNs of the modern day have? Disclaimer: No, I am not talking about my own project. We're using regular digital art. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zodai Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Gyakuten Saiban's animation is more in regards to movement and putting force behind individual sprites - It's technically animation but functionally it's closer to static sprites with more force behind them. That said putting that type of a style into a romance feels like a poor match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dergonu Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Well if its a choice between lower quality with animations or high quality with no animations, of course I'd go with a higher quality still image. The animations are nice, but it gets old rather quick unless the animations go alongside a very high quality images. Stuff like nekopara will always be enjoyable because you can literally just sit there staring that the character animations and be pleased. If its up to their standard, its superior to most still images. If you take something like Eden* from Minori then I'd say its not really that enjoyable to be honest. I guess in this case its literally just lip sync and no movement, but it isnt that amazing and it just becomes disruptive in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arcadeotic Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 AA is more zany with its sprites and art, so I think that it wouldn't resound well with the romance genre, well at least in my opinion Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makudomi Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 Interesting feedback! Thank you all for responding so quickly. I myself have a fondness for that aesthetic sense, but I'm rather biased in that generally I'd rather see a low-quality sprite moving (especially if it treads into comedic territory, like GS) than a high-quality one standing still. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcosis Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Those games don't really have pixel art. They're standard bitmap assets, resized to fit the hardware limitations, which gives them that "oldschool" feel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Black Sands Entertainment Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 39 minutes ago, Makudomi said: Hello! I had a thought on my mind and I'm honestly somewhat curious about how the western VN community feels about it in theory. Speaking purely from your personal tastes, what are your thoughts on the prospect of a romantic visual novel released with animated pixel sprites, similar to the look of the Gyakuten Saiban/Ace Attorney series? Would you enjoy it for its nonstandard merits, or are you wholly satisfied with the static but more detailed style that most VNs of the modern day have? Disclaimer: No, I am not talking about my own project. We're using regular digital art. If you use pixel art, you must not present it in 2d. It must be a 3d game to make it feel american. With that being said, americans love pixels if there is some kind of movement involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makudomi Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 23 minutes ago, Narcosis said: Those games don't really have pixel art. They're standard bitmap assets, resized to fit the hardware limitations, which gives them that "oldschool" feel. Is that how the process goes? I see. All I was really trying to propose was the usage of that "old school" aesthetic, to tell you the truth, as I've always enjoyed that presentation style. While it's an adventure game and not a true VN, the Gyakuten Saiban series is what got me interested in the medium to begin with, back when I was a middle schooler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
john 'mr. customer' smith Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 if it doesn't clash with the feel of the rest of the game, then by all means yes, i'd love to see that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Narcosis Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Just now, Makudomi said: Is that how the process goes? I see. All I was really trying to propose was the usage of that "old school" aesthetic, to tell you the truth, as I've always enjoyed that presentation style. While it's an adventure game and not a true VN, the Gyakuten Saiban series is what got me interested in the medium to begin with, back when I was a middle schooler. It's easy to mix pixel art with low color/low res bitmaps, especially nowadays when the line between both is very thin. The only difference is, that in the past pixel art steemed mainly from the hardware limitations of available platforms, while nowadays we aren't really limited anymore and pixel art kind of evolved and divided into many different sub-genres; while not always correct by the default standard, they still make a part of it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zodai Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 46 minutes ago, Makudomi said: Interesting feedback! Thank you all for responding so quickly. I myself have a fondness for that aesthetic sense, but I'm rather biased in that generally I'd rather see a low-quality sprite moving (especially if it treads into comedic territory, like GS) than a high-quality one standing still. Still sprites are also better at conveying information - since then you can distort the movement of time more effectively. Say if you end up having Nekopara's type of sprites in a more serious game - expressions and posture are exaggerated to place impact on the emotions conveyed, but with Nekopara's basic spritestyle (I'm going to call it simulated breathing) it looks as if the characters are literally waiting for you to finish reading while holding their pose so they can keep going. I might be stretching it a little far here but abstracting the movement of time in this case allows greater control of the passage of time through all reading speeds, whereas when you animate the sprites too heavily it makes the pacing feel distorted because of a lack of control over the flow of time. I would rather go for limited animation in important slow-paced scenes - ones high enough in importance that you can implement some form of an animation flourish into a particular scene's CG, rather than the sprites where the animation would overflow into something it doesn't fit. It's more important that it feels well and conveys what you're trying to convey than the raw technical level of the sprites. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorp Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 I like high-quality pixel art much more than your usual VN art (as really 90% of art in VNs are just generic moe CG). But high-quality pixel arti is so rare nowadays... Ace Attorney is not really good. This is examples of pixel art I mean (and it is fan-made, btw. guy just draw in his free time and I not even sure if he is a professional artist): Tyr and Darklord Rooke 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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